


untitled electrocution fic

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Electrocution, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:17:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for my h/c bingo's "electrocution" square. Naturally a quiet afternoon of home improvement can't go right when Peter and Neal are involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	untitled electrocution fic

It was just a stupid household accident. In Neal's opinion, there was a certain irony to the fact that Peter ran around with a gun all day, arresting dangerous people, and then he managed to get himself hurt in the _kitchen._

Peter was replacing the kitchen range for El. Neal had learned by now that it never boded well when Peter went into "home improvement handyman" mode. It wasn't that he was _bad_ at it; he was just alarmingly enthusiastic, and for some reason seemed to think that Neal ought to be enthusiastic too, as some sort of guy-bonding thing. In Neal's opinion, there was no point in even knowing how to do this kind of thing, since experts could be hired to do it twice as well and three times as fast. Let alone wasting a Saturday afternoon doing it.

He pointed this out multiple times as he and Peter wrestled the old stove out of its place. 

"You didn't have to come over," Peter retorted, wiping an arm across his forehead. It was a hot day; even with the a/c cranked, they were both sweating.

In all honesty, Neal wasn't sure _why_ he'd said yes when Peter had called him and asked if he was free to spend a couple of hours in home improvement hell. Peter did make good coffee, and Neal hadn't had anything else planned; if he'd stayed at June's, he'd probably have had nothing more to look forward to than an afternoon of reading. Still, that was looking preferable to their current activity.

"I hope there isn't more to this than just plugging it in," Neal said, leaning over the back of the new range. It sat in the middle of the kitchen, where the delivery people had left it, on a sheet of cardboard to protect the kitchen tile.

"There's not. The cord's already in and everything." Peter squirmed into the gap between the old range and the countertop, and leaned down behind it -- to unplug it, Neal assumed. "This is a lot harder in an older house," Peter continued, his voice issuing from behind the range. "One time I helped my dad replace a coal-fired boiler in an old farmhouse. _That_ was a job and a half, let me tell you --"

There was a pop, and Peter broke off in midsentence. He flinched hard and stumbled backwards, going down on his backside on the kitchen floor.

"Peter?"

Peter shook his head dazedly. Neal knelt down next to him. Peter looked stunned; his eyes were a little glazed. He shook out his right hand, as if it hurt him.

"Did you just electrocute yourself?" Neal said in disbelief. 

"Yeah." Peter's voice was a little absent, and he still didn't quite look all there in the eyes, but he seemed to be breathing okay, so Neal decided not to panic. Yet. Peter gave a breathless little laugh, and focused on Neal, so okay, that was good. "Cord's frayed. I should have checked. Should've turned off the power, come to think of it. Appliances are on a 240-volt circuit; Dad would have my hide for being careless around it ..."

Peter wasn't normally prone to babbling, and Neal's panic-o-meter ratcheted a little higher. "Do you need me to call 911 or something?" Neal hadn't the foggiest clue how to deal with this particular kind of medical emergency. It had never come up for him before.

"No. I'm okay." Peter didn't look okay -- he was still pale and a little bit glazed-looking. "I just feel ... strange."

"What kind of strange?" Neal wanted to know. El was going to kill him if she found out he'd let Peter handyman himself to death.

"I don't know. Shaky." Peter touched a hand to his chest. "Heart's a little fluttery."

That brought back very bad memories of Kent's office and a certain glass of poisoned Armagnac. Also, Peter was holding his hand oddly -- stiff, with the fingers loosely curled. Neal took his hand and Peter allowed him, with unusual docility. There were red and white marks along the side of his hand. "You're burned," Neal said.

"I am? I guess I didn't notice."

This quiet, tractable version of Peter was starting to freak Neal out. "Just sit there," he said, and hastily ran cold water over a dish towel, which he wrapped around Peter's hand. Cold for burns, right? Damn it, he needed to borrow one of Mozzie's "emergency medicine after the apocalypse" survivalist manuals. "Do you have a first-aid kit?"

"Bathroom," Peter said. "Under the sink."

Neal went and got it. By the time he came back, Peter was standing up and running cold water over his hand in the kitchen sink. "Yeah, now it's starting to hurt," he said, flexing his fingers.

He still looked woozy, but not as bad as before. "I can't believe you electrocuted yourself," Neal said, opening the kit and laying out gauze and antibacterial ointment. First aid wasn't his strong suit, but he could manage this part, at least.

"I told you, the cord was frayed." Now Peter sounded testy, more like himself. "We're not telling Elizabeth about this."

Neal snorted. "Of course we are. Sit down, and give me your hand."

"I don't think you're supposed to be giving _me_ orders," Peter said, but he did it, leaning against the under-the-sink cabinets while Neal patted his hand dry with another dish towel and bandaged it. Peter was still uncharacteristically quiet, and Neal could tell he wasn't feeling good, though it was hard to tell _how_ not-good he was feeling, or whether it was likely to become life-threatening anytime in the near future.

"Do you need to lie down?"

"No," Peter said, with a little flare of energy. "I told you, I don't feel _bad_. Just weird. I'll be fine after I sit here for a minute, and then we can finish installing El's new range."

"Uh-huh," Neal said, because it was easier than arguing, and he fetched Peter's laptop from the living room. While Peter leaned his head back against the cabinets, eyes closed, Neal sat cross-legged next to him and googled "electric shock", then proceeded to read the gorier bits aloud, interspersed with questions about Peter's symptoms.

"Is that a second-degree burn, do you think?"

"No," Peter said without opening his eyes, flexing his fingers.

Neal consulted the pictures. He was probably right. "How does your heart feel?"

"Fine," Peter said.

" _Actually_ fine, or Peter Burke fine?"

Peter cracked his eyes open, looking annoyed. "What does _that_ mean? Hey, what are you doing?"

"Taking your pulse," Neal said, gripping his wrist firmly. It did feel a little fluttery and fast, but it wasn't as if he'd know what a dangerous pulse rhythm felt like anyway.

By the time Neal had exhausted Google and Wikipedia as first-aid sources, Peter was looking a lot better and no longer cooperating with Neal's attempts to make him sit still, which probably meant he was feeling better as well.

"Back to work?" Peter said, eyeing the range in the middle of the kitchen floor without much enthusiasm.

"I don't think it's a good idea to exert yourself right after getting electrocuted."

"It's not _right after_ ," Peter argued. "It's been at least half an hour. And we can't just leave that sitting there; what's El going to say?"

"Peter, I think she'd rather have a stove in the middle of her kitchen than have her husband drop dead from a heart attack."

"We're not quitting in the middle of a job," Peter declared.

"No one said anything about quitting." Neal waggled a phone at him. "However, a wise man learns from his mistakes."

Peter sighed and took the phone with a faint smile.

It took a few calls before they found a contractor willing to come around on a Saturday afternoon and finish the installation. It helped that it really was little more than a matter of plugging it in -- well, that and a strong back to help move it. Before too long, the new range was installed and the old one hauled outside to await recycling pickup.

"A job well done," Neal said, toasting the new range with a glass of iced tea. "Everyone's still alive and the suspect's been subdued -- that's the definition of a good case, right?"

Peter snorted, and leaned on the countertop, prompting Neal to give him a quick look of concern. 

"You feeling okay?"

"I'm fine. Mostly." He flexed his hand, and then gave Neal a smile. "Thank you."

Neal tried not to look as if Peter's gratitude warmed him down to his toes, as it always did. "You owe me," he said, trying to deflect.

"I know," Peter said, seriously, with warmth in his brown eyes.

"An afternoon outside my radius?" Neal asked hopefully.

"Don't get ahead of yourself."

"Hey, you got an afternoon of _my_ day off, Peter; you owe me a few hours of yours."

Peter opened his mouth, mustering objections -- then sighed, and smiled.

When Elizabeth got home, she found them on the couch, heads together over Peter's laptop, arguing over museum exhibits.


End file.
